Hannah Sorenson’s Reviews > Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction > Status Update

^Simplicity, coupled with clarity, equals elegance.^

^One useful analogy to sequencing in prose is the frame-by-frame progression of a movie film. Each frame is different enough from the one before that the viewer gets an impression of motion, but not so different that the motion seems jerky.^

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By polishing the dramatic high points first, you achieve a clearer grasp of exactly how you must lead the reader up to those high points.

The important-scene-first approach is also the most efficient. The dramatic high points of a story are the first ones nailed down and the ones which, once nailed down, are most likely to remain as they are.^

^Good polish grabs the reader with its active imagery and propels him into the story, where he is captured and moved along by the underlying structure. The active images follow one another like the frames of a moving picture, catapulting the reader from focus to focus as the story unfolds.^

^Polish is but the plaster on the walls of structure. Done in a craftsmanlike fashion it reflects and highlights the dramatic architecture of the story, but it is never more than a facade. Structural flaws will inevitably show through.^

^Producing rough copy is typically the single most exhausting step in storytelling (probably because the writer learns so much in the process) and if you're not mentally tired you've probably been holding back. Letting yourself rest up while the story cools off will give your subconscious time to digest what you've done.^

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As you reconsider the story now you should be able to see it with much more insight and a keener understanding of the forces at play in the character and his story.^

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For one thing, the simple (or not so simple) process of writing the story through, if you've invested yourself in it, has changed you.

You're no longer the same person who found that story and analyzed it. In a sense you have lived it, and you can see it from the inside now as well as from the outside.

^Chances are good to overwhelming that you're going to hit a serious snag somewhere.
[...]
Such occurrences shouldn't be considered failures; often they are quite the opposite. The story is taking over and making course corrections for you. This is why nobody, but nobody, ever writes only one "rough draft."

^As a result the story is absorbing. Wilk becomes a much more real character than either Dr. Ducker or Mrs. Kelly ever does, and whatever his tale lacks in excitement it makes up for in depth.^